There are two ways that YOU can HELP :

1.       BUY ANY PRODUCT ON OUR E-SHOP. Maison Alma si commited to continue to pay the 37 men and women that hand craft our products, even though all production has stopped. Find more details of our pledge further below.

2.       DONATE TO HELP THE EFFORT TO SUPPORT ARTISANAL COMMUNITIES IN COLOMBIA:

Beyond the men and women that we work with, we are aware of a larger-scale crisis that affects entire artisanal communities in rural areas of Colombia. We want to use our platform to give visibility to the fact starting today, more than 450 families will have no more income. These large artisanal communities are vulnerable communities that we should protect. We strive to reach BEYOND the scope of what our own brand can do, and help sustain much larger communities than just our workforce. Find the urgent reasons why to donate underneath.

DONATION LINK: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8nIDZC42f0?_ga=1.38785891.1350188979.1567682214.  

WHY DONATE ?

It is crucial that we preserve the artisanal communities of unparralled skill and craftsmanship

• This is a big scale problem: These are very large communities, that are hyper specialized. 50% of the adults in artisanal villages will be unemployed in a week: Artisanal work represents most employment sources within these ultra-specialized villages. Leaders who dispatch the work to the entire population are now facing unemployment and panic within their communities.

• They are vulnerable communities: These communities have no safety net as they live day by day. They need to work every day to ensure the livelihood of their families, and they have little to no capacity to ‘save’. Unlike Europe, the government does not provide unemployment aid in time of crisis.

• 95% of artisans are women, who sustain their family economically in an average household of 4. The men of the village work in the fields but concentrate on single crops – on which the village cannot rely on as nourishment. Thus, helping one artisan means helping an entire family.

• All work has come to a full stop. These communities used to receive orders every week from around the world, but everything has been cancelled due to the closing of stores and frontiers.

• They have no alternatives except us: Transportation between villages and cities has stopped, which blocks them to ship their existing merchandise. Some cannot even go to the bank in the nearest villages due to quaranteen, so they can’t access the few savings to buy food.

1. An artisanal community of 180 artisans and their families, who live in the Guacamayas village, in Boyacá, Colombia.

2. Three tailor workshops in Bogota, Colombia, and their families.

3. One hand-bag workshop in Bogota, Colombia and their families.

4. One pompom weaver master in Bogota, Colombia.

5. An artisanal community of 260 artisans and their families, who live in the Sandona village, in Nariño, Colombia.

THE DONATIONS

the donations will be used to sustain the livelihood of artisanal communities beyond the 37 men and women we employ.

An entire village unemployed and idle, in quarantine, is a village that will suffer. For this reason; we have decided with the community leaders that all funds will be used to EMPLOY the artisans, and to pay each individual for their crafts. This artisanal work can perfectly be done respecting the self-isolation measures, as they are crafts that are done AT HOME.

This way, we are not only financing the purchasing power to get groceries; we are helping the artisanal cooperatives to create stock of their crafts that they will be able to sell in the future. Your donation will be an economic multiplier.

We are currently working on a proyect with sustainablity-minded retailers to create a platform were the artisans will be a able to sell the crafts they create during this period. Beyond quarantine, the Covid-19 /Coronavirus impact on economy will dramatically reduce future income for these families. We are working towards finding a way to sell their stock.

OUR PLEDGE WITH OUR WORKERS

E-COMMERCE SALES

Maison Alma regularly works with workshops and associations who hand-craft our products. Our orders employ 50 men and women throughout the year. Although most of the orders that we have received have been cancelled, and all production came to a stop Friday 20th of March due to strict quarantine restrictions in Colombia; we are commited to continue paying the workshops and associations that we work with on a regular basis. Our objective is to help micro-entrepreneurs surpass the crisis together.

How can a start-up like ours finance this effort in the long-term? We pledge all the profits of any sales on our website, from March 27 to April 27, to create a fund destined to finance our continued financial support.

For the micro-entrepreneur workshops in Bogota:

Strict quarantine does not allow any of the individuals to keep working in their crafts – as no ‘home-office’ measures can apply to these crafts far away from their sewing machines and tools. Livelihood in Bogota is quite expensive, and prices for basic commodities are surging in non-central neighborhoods. This will help the mirco-entrepreneurs to pay the salaries of employees that do not work for Maison Alma, despite no economic activity.